1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to caps for water bottles and similar containers of various sizes and, more particularly, to an improved upper cap design for simplifying application of the cap onto a bottle neck.
2. Description of Related Art
Current designs for five gallon water bottle closures or caps include a seal bead on the under side of the cap and above a locking bead that biases the seal bead down against the crown of the bottle neck to tightly seal the cap around the crown. The locking bead snaps down and around the upper crown of the bottle neck to concentrate the lower load onto the upper side of the crown and onto a smaller surface region, which raises the surface pressure on the cap and thereby improves the seal. Some caps are provided with foam on the under side of the top panel of the cap, because the foam conforms to irregularities in the crown surface and as a result enhances the effectiveness of the seal.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,002 of Faulstich discloses a water bottle cap with no seal bead and which is intended to thread onto a bottle neck. The upper region of the cap has an outwardly angled, somewhat conical shape defined at its lower edge by an external bead that fits around an external upper thread located above the crown. U.S. Pat. No. 3,392,860 also to Faulstich discloses a similar cap design. The design of the upper cap region of the present invention improves upon the cap designs shown in these patents.
Various designs for bottle caps are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,392,862 and 3,840,137 to Faulstich, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,707 to Crisci, which disclose seal bead designs where the seal bead is located beneath the crown of the bottle neck, which requires the seal bead to be completely pushed down beneath the crown. U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,316 to Tackles, U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,846 to Adams et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,125 to Adams disclose designs where the seal bead engages the top surface of the crown. With these three later designs, the seal bead is generally aligned with the locking bead and, to some extent, increases the frictional resistance generated when pushing the locking bead down over the crown. All of the foregoing patents provide general background information on the state of the art for cap designs.